


Plan B: There Is No Plan B

by RageHappyThunder



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Cancer, Death, Drinking, Hospitalization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 08:39:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1143876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RageHappyThunder/pseuds/RageHappyThunder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>New York had it’s perks, it was cooler than Texas and the people where different. <br/>Joel was glad he took his company job out here, he was getting tired of being hot all the time anyway, the sand was boring and New York actually had snow. Plus it’s not like he was alone, he convinced Jack to come up here with him. He was ready to start a new chapter in his life, get work done, maybe make new friends or you know, make Jack make new friends so he could latch onto them. But Joel has a shitty heart and sometimes all your plans go undone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plan B: There Is No Plan B

**Author's Note:**

> It's a shitty sad fic.

  
  


New York had it’s perks, it was cooler than Texas and the people where different.

Joel was glad he took his company job out here, he was getting tired of being hot all the time anyway, the sand was boring and New York actually had snow. Plus it’s not like he was alone, he convinced Jack to come up here with him. He was ready to start a new chapter in his life, get work done, maybe make new friends or you know, make Jack make new friends so he could latch onto them. But Joel has a shitty heart and sometimes all your plans go undone.

 

Joel knew why he was here, it was almost routine for him now. The stress, the cigarettes, the alcohol, his frail heart, all of that shit clumped together made Joel a mixed drink filled with odd ticks and hospital visits. He sighed, Joel breathed in the stale hospital air that tasted like someone else’s medication. The machines around him made a sound like a mechanical heart beat, robots that only needed a personality to be alive. The clock above his bed ticked and tocked and tocked and tocked like the universe was trying to tell him something but Joel wanted nothing more than to light a cigarette and open a window.

Everything seemed to have a beat around him, like life was found in inanimate objects while Joel heard the muffled sobs of a mother losing her world down the hall last night.

Joel had a roommate. His hair was non-existent and after each treatment he’d throw up the contents in his stomach, but man he was always one to crack jokes and his face would beam with a smile. It made Joel even more depressed how hard this kid was faking it but then he remembered the biggest lie he ever told Ray was when he smiled back.

Ray wears the stupidest pajamas, and the only people who ever visit him are his parents. Joel watched this kid’s friends come and go; one was an electrician who boycotted late night hospital visits in favor of getting on with his life, one was a dumb british ‘bloke’ with a stupid nose who didn’t feel ‘comfortable’ in a hospital so he fled back home.  So on and so forth… But Ray didn’t dare blame them.

I mean he was terminal.

He knew death was coming and they had him locked up in a cage like an animal waiting for slaughter _but he was so young._

Joel coughed and his machine leaped, every palpitation or abnormality of his beating battery would send the machine in a state of panic for a grand total of a second, only for it to go back to normal.

Joel sent Ray a sympathetic glance and muttered sorry.

Ray sat up and said it was okay, he couldn’t sleep at all anyway.

Joel was a grand total of 38 years old and his companion was only 20, so he was told. Not even old enough to take a swig of whiskey, old enough to go to college but to sick to go so he had to drop out; he brags more about his gamerscore then all the sex he’s never had and he shines brightly in the hospital room. Joel felt like he was in college again, except there’s no classes to go to and his 2 AMs are filled with him and Ray just talking and not him staring at a computer screen doing some damn essay.

 

One day Jack made a guest appearance, Joel leaned his head to the entrance and gave him a smirk.

“Do you have what I asked for?” He said gravely, Ray sat up in his bed and wondered what the commotion was all about.   
Jack sighed and handed Joel a flask, “Don’t say it like that people will think I’m giving you drugs.”  
“Actually, alcohol is technically a drug,” Ray said matter of factly, starring Jack right in the eyes.

“That’s it Joel give it back,” Jack said with anxiety creeping into his voice.

Joel moved his hand just out of Jack’s reach, “Are you my best friend?”

“What?”  
“Are you my best friend? In sickness and in health, till death do us part?”  
“We’re not married Joel and you’re not going to die.”  
“Are we Jack, are we friends?”  
“I do. I mean, fuck, yes Joel.”  
“Then let me have this.”  
Jack sighed and rubbed his face before he sunk back into his chair and bit the skin on his thumb.

“Hey Ray?”  
“Hmm?” The younger stood up and started walking to Joel’s bed.   
“Want to feel like a man?”

“Oh god Joel no, I thought that was for you, you can’t give a god damn cancer patient alcohol, he’s only 20,” Jack spat venomously.

“He’s actually 53.”  
“Joel.”  
“Cancer does wonders, it reverses ageing in the skin.”  
“ ** _Joel_**.”

Joel threw the flask and Ray caught it after some stumbling. He held it in his hands for a while before taking a shy glance at Joel and Jack.

“Come on kid, undo the flask and take a sip,” Joel cooed like he was some teenage boy behind a 7-11 convincing a kid to take a hit from a cigarette. Jack crossed his arms as Ray lifted the flask into his mouth.

He cringed almost instantly and Joel threw his head back laughing, Jack rubbed his temple.

“That tastes worse than chemo, Jesus what the fuck.”  
“Give the flask here,” Joel outstretched his hand and downed the bitter liquid, Ray made a face as he sat down on Joel’s bed.

Eventually Jack took out a deck of cards from his pocket and he taught Ray how to play texas hold ‘em, Joel muttered under his breath false rules while Jack told him to shut up.

Joel learned to share his friends.

Ray eventually had to leave to another room to get his treatment, he bid Jack farewell and Joel said he’d see him later unless he croaked. Jack didn’t think that was funny.

“So what’s the real reason you’re here?” Joel asked and Jack shuffled his cards, breathing in a sharp inhale of breath.

“Burnie fired you, said you can’t do good work in a hospital. I’m sorry Joel.”

Suddenly Joel wished he was back in Texas, in that small office building he loved to hate. He wanted to disappear, I mean if he survived this hospital visit what was out there for him? He regretted agreeing to being relocated, he regretted letting the the rush of being in a new state sway him, and he definitely regretting letting a new workers lounge and bigger office sway him into giving up his whole life in Texas. Stupid, stupid, stupid-  

Joel threw up again from stress, little specks of blood mixed with the green jello he ate for lunch made an interesting combination in his little vomit-bucket.

“I tried to convince him to not do it Joel I’m sorry-”  
“I don’t I don’t want to I don’t want to think about this.”  
“I’m sorry.”  
“I know you are.”

\---

Ray was the mixed drink of a misdiagnosis and not wanting to leave the hospital. The only friend he ever had was laying down in the hospital bed in front of him, everyone else was so sure he’d die that they abandoned him.

Ray asked Joel why he drank so much even though he knew it would be the end of him, Joel said he drunk a lot because it would be the end of him. Joel asked Ray if he’s ever had a girlfriend, (or boyfriend), and Ray said no, said he’d rather not because what was the point? Not like they were gonna go anywhere anyway.

Joel asked him what he was going to do when he was finally discharged, and Ray shrugged.

“Haven’t given life much thought to be honest.”

Joel sat up in his bed, and smile on his face, “Tell you what, I don’t have a job but I still got some money, the second I get out of here we’ll fuck shit up.”

 

Ray smiled because Joel was really, his only fucking friend.

Ray was crying because Joel was his only fucking friend. Sitting stone cold in a casket in front of him with only two other people around him. Jack and his girlfriend. Ray was silently fuming, his hair growing back in patches that made Joel laugh every time he laid eyes on him, but he wasn’t laughing now. He wasn't breathing now. Jacks eyes flowed like waterfalls cascading downward and hitting the ground softly. The air around them was bitter as Ray’s mouth went dry. Jack’s girlfriend that Ray never caught the name of comforted Jack, rubbing her hands on the ginger’s back, squeezing his hand and whispering ‘no no it’s okay it’s okay.’

But no one cared about Ray now. It was just him and his stupid memories and he hoped he was the one who died.

 

Then they buried him.

 

And Ray couldn’t believe it.

Because he watched as they slowly brought his casket downward.

 

And threw dirt.

 

And they buried his best friend.

 

When the crew was gone, there was only one person left in the whole fucking cemetery, screaming like a privileged child who was told ‘no’ for the first time. Ray held his own sides and squeezed his own hand

But he didn’t have the heart

to tell himself

He’d be okay.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please know that I love you, I love you, I love you and I hope you don't feel sad because of something I've done. I'm here if you need to talk or something. I love you,


End file.
